Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) is an emerging mobile Internet device (MID) application that may provide for recognition of images in real time. Conventional approaches to accomplishing the recognition might involve the use of a software-based Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF) technique to identify and characterize points of interest in a query image, and match processing to compare those points of interest to the points of interest of known images. While these approaches may be suitable in certain circumstances, there still remains considerable room for improvement. For example, traditional software-based solutions to identifying points of interest may be associated with inadequate performance and relatively high power consumption, particularly as MID form factors become smaller.